Shane Strachan, Click Here for Translation

Now, one of the effects of language is to efface itself to the extent that its expression comes across. As I become engrossed in a book, I no longer see the letters on the page or recall turning each page. […] When someone – an author or friend – succeeds in expressing himself, the signs are immediately forgotten; all that remains is the meaning. The perfection of language lies in its capacity to pass unnoticed.

– The Prose of the World, Maurice Merleau–Ponty

When you were a child, when you didn’t understand a word in a story, you normally read on with the subconscious hope that you would absorb its meaning through context, like an illustration of a big red balloon above the word balloon in the sentence Charlie is holding a big red balloon.

Or you’d gather its meaning from the surrounding words in Charlie blew up the balloon and tied it in a knot.

Or you looked up from your book and asked someone else in the room, What’s a lumberjack? An aubergine? Bison?

Or there were those times when you flicked through your pocket dictionary for the meaning, like when you discovered that the word resin meant a highly viscous, sticky, flammable, typically aromatic substance secreted by trees. You proceeded to look up what viscous, flammable and secreted meant, but you worked out aromatic for yourself because aroma meant a smell, usually a nice one you’d come to understand.

Things have changed. Now you are an adult. At some time or other, you decided you’d come to understand enough, like you were full to the brim and in danger of overflowing. Now you have Google.

Well done you. You made it. You recognised yourself or something like you in the first li(n)es. Dear Reader, you are (not) a figment of my imagination (after all). You are (not) my ideal reader. Your knowledge knows (no) limits. Sorry I (ever) doubt(ed) you. All is (not) lost.

I’ll stop spikkin pan loaf noo. Fa do I think I am?

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, The Prose of the World (London: Heinemann, 1969) ed. by Claude Lefort, trans. by John O’Neill, pp.9-10

Shane Strachan is a writer based in Aberdeen, Scotland. Much of his work is inspired by the Northeast of Scotland and its relationship with the wider world. His most recent work for both page and stage is concerned with using real-life material as a source for creative experimentation including: The Shelter, a verbatim theatre projectwith the National Theatre of Scotland; Nevertheless (amaBooks), a series of short stories inspired by the National Library of Scotland’s Muriel Spark archives; and current works-in-progress focused on the life of fashion designer Bill Gibb. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Aberdeen and was a 2018 Robert Louis Stevenson Fellow (Scottish Book Trust).

This text was commissioned as a response to Looking Across the Fields, a screening curated by Iain Irving that took place at the Belmont Filmhouse, Aberdeen on Sunday 17 February 2019. Both text and screening are part of LUX Scotland’s pilot programme of events in Aberdeen, supported by Aberdeen City Council’s Creative Funding Programme.